February 27, 2010

Last year, Haloscan announced the discontinuation of their free commenting platform, which I have been using on the Crusty Curmudgeon almost since its inception.

No problem, I thought, I'll just switch to another one. Blogger has its own system which is probably adequate, right? Problem is, turning on comments didn't turn on comments.

No problem, I thought, there's aways Intense Debate. Just toss in some custom code and we're off to the races. Problem is, they don't support my old-style template.

Blogger Classic used a slightly modified HTML, which I can practically code in my sleep. I can't even begin to understand the markup language used by New Blogger to create their templates. So it looks like my hand's been forced: in order to get the features I want, I have to lose my own layout.

Ugh. This looks so generic. Well, if I can't understand the code, I'll have to get cracking on hacking the style sheet. The orange was getting a little old anyway.

I don't normally expect better from Rick Joyner and Morningstar Ministries. They've been a locus of goofy Christianity, "faith healing" and false prophecy for many years. After all, these are the same people who endorsed Todd Bentley - at least, until his marital infidelity singlehandedly killed the Lakeland "Revival" in Florida. (They continue to oversee his supposed "restoration.")

So somehow, the "Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey" is right up their alley. But check out the incongruity between the earnest vocal stylings, and the subject matter. Never has such nonsensical blasphemy been sung with such absolute conviction. It's "worshipful," even.

Even more absurd are the "healing" testimonies that came about as the result of this garbage. My favourite was the woman at the end, who complained of back problems, until she, too, did the Holy Ghost Hokey Pokey:

Y'all said put yourself in and put yourself out, and I put myself in and my back is completely healed. . . . I put myself in and I put myself out and it is healed. My spine is healed. He is real he is real he is real.

Who is real, she doesn't say. I can only assume it isn't Jesus. I don't think he's got anything to do with this crap.